Kasimdzhanov vs Anand – a preview of San Luis

9/18/2005 – The will clash at the FIDE world championship in San Luis later this month:
Indian Super-GM Vishy Anand and the Uzbek title-holder Rustam Kasimdzhanov. In his Monday night Playchess
lecture Dennis Monokroussos us a very instructive game played between the two
earlier this year. Enjoy!

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We continue our San Luis preview with a game between rating favorite and former
FIDE world champion Viswanathan Anand and current FIDE champ Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
In a recent rapid event, Kasimdzhanov gave Anand a run for his money in the
finals, taking the first game before going down by a 2.5-1.5 margin. But overall,
Anand has a huge plus (+7 –1 =3) in their head-to-head battles.

Kasimdzhanov vs Anand in the León Rapid Chess tournament in June
2005

This week, we'll take a look at their most recent decisive game at a classical
time control, their second game from this year's Linares super-tournament.
Kasimdzhanov, with White, repeated an anti-Sicilian sideline he had tried in
several previous games. It's a line with some bite – Svidler famously
beat Kasparov with it in Tilburg 1997 – but Anand was ready. Black equalized,
and thereafter the position took on a strange cast. White's position was okay,
but somehow, he never quite managed to finish his development. How Anand managed
to keep control, and almost imperceptibly increase his advantage and convert
it into a winning attack, makes the game a model of exploiting the initiative.
We generally associate that term with attacking play, but in this case, it's
an initiative in the service of positional ends first; only later will Anand's
positional trumps cash themselves out in a winning attack.

So join me this Monday night at 9 p.m. ET on the Playchess.com server for
a great game and the usual post-show banter. (But bring your own pizza.) Hope
to see you then!

Dennis Monokroussos'
Radio ChessBase
lectures begin on Mondays at 9 p.m. EDT, which translates to 02:00h GMT,
03:00 Paris/Berlin, 13:00h Sydney (on Tuesday). Other time zones can
be found at the bottom of this page. You can use Fritz or any Fritz-compatible
program (Shredder, Junior, Tiger, Hiarcs) to follow the lectures, or
download a free trial client.

Note: you can watch older lectures by Dennis Monokroussos here:

Enter the above archive room and click on "Games" to see the lectures.
The lectures, which can go for an hour or more, will cost you between one and
two ducats.
That is the equivalent of 10-20 Euro cents (14-28 US cents).

Dennis
Monokroussos is 39, lives in South Bend, IN, and is an adjunct professor
of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

He is fairly inactive as a player right now, spending most of his non-philosophy
time being a husband and teaching chess. At one time he was one of the strongest
juniors in the U.S., but quit for about eight years starting in his early 20s.
His highest rating was 2434 USCF, but he has now fallen to the low-mid 2300s
– "too much blitz, too little tournament chess", he says.

Dennis has been working as a chess teacher for seven years now, giving lessons
to adults and kids both in person and on the internet, worked for a number
of years for New York’s Chess In The Schools program, where he was
one of the coaches of the 1997-8 US K-8 championship team from the Bronx, and
was very active in working with many of CITS’s most talented juniors.

When Dennis Monokroussos presents a game, there are usually two main areas
of focus: the opening-to-middlegame transition and the key moments of the middlegame
(or endgame, when applicable). With respect to the latter, he attempts to present
some serious analysis culled from his best sources (both text and database),
which he has checked with his own efforts and then double-checked with his
chess software.

See also

11/28/2018 – The moment we've all been waiting for! Live games (for Premium members) from the 2018 World Championship match in London. Every two games will be followed by a rest day until Game 12 (if necessary) on November 26th which will be preceded by an additional rest day. All rounds start at 15:00 UT (London time) / 16:00 CEST / 10:00 EST. If needed there would be a rapid tiebreak match on Wednesday, November 28th. | Photos: Patricia Claros

See also

8/27/2018 – Live games and commentary from Saint Louis! Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian tied for first place, while Caruana also tied for fourth place in the Grand Chess Tour standings with Wesley So, forcing a playoff match to be held on Tuesday. | Graphic: Saint Louis Chess Club

Video

Former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik liked to play the French and once described it as a 'difficult and dangerous opening'. But in this 60 minutes video IM Andrew Martin suggests an aggressive and little-used idea of the renowned attacking player GM Viktor Kupreichik to counter the French: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Be3!?. Andrew Martin uses the games of Kupreichik to show why this line could catch many French aficionados unprepared and is very dangerous for Black. Attacking players will love this line and the unusual complications that it promotes.

Enjoy the best moments of recent top tournaments (World Cup, Isle of Man Open) with analysis of top players. In addition you'll get lots of training material. For example 10 new suggestions for your opening repertoire.